Many people suffer from chronic back, hip or other movement restricting conditions that are both painful and very limiting. Such people often find simple tasks such as bending over to pick up an object, such as a walking cane or crutch, which has inadvertently fallen to the floor or other surface, nearly impossible. People who have had hip replacement surgery, in particular, are restricted in this bending movement.
Some prior art patents such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,392,800, 5,392,801 and 4,947,882 address the problem of "bending over" to pick up a fallen cane. U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,800 is directed to a multi-purpose cane device and includes a rod positioned on the resilient foot portion or pad which covers the distal end of the cane. The rod remains in extended position while the cane is being used. The user must place his or her foot on the extending rod and apply a force by foot pressure which will cause the cane handle to swing upwardly. It should be obvious that if the cane should fall on the side from which the rod extends, the rod would be faced downwardly away from the user and thereby be inaccessible to contact by the user's foot. Additionally, the force required to rotate the cane upwardly by application of foot pressure on the extending rod would require that the hip joint of the user be placed under a great amount of stress causing pain and discomfort or even further injury to the already weakened hip joint.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,801 is directed to a self-righting walking cane having a weighted base provided with a center of gravity positioned below the center of rotation of the device. An unbalanced movement exists because of this relationship which causes the cane to roll on the surface to which it has fallen, and, right itself. A first problem that the user encounters in this device is the large mass which is positioned at the base of the cane and must be carried by the user. Additionally, such large mass would be continuously engaged by the foot of the user during the normal course of walking unless a special effort was made by the user to hold the cane further away from his or her body to provide a space between the large mass and the foot.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,882 is directed to crutches, walking sticks, and the like. U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,882 discloses a device which, like the device of U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,801, requires the user to apply a force to the base to raise the cane to its upright position.
The above mentioned difficulties are overcome by the actuator mechanism of the present invention which eliminates the need for any contact with the fallen walking appliance by the user in order to position the appliance in an upright position to enable the user to retrieve the appliance.